It is only when you walk around arable land a lot that you really see how industrialised and unnatural much of the countryside has become; there isn’t much room for nature here. This land is very wet, so there are deep drainage ditches and square ponds like this one dotted around among the fields. I took this picture in early October 2018, just as the leaves were starting to fall from the trees. The farmer had recently dredged this pond, and cleared the ditch that drains into it, chopping down, or grubbing out, many small trees in the process. For some reason, this dead tree was left untouched.

Thanks to Sigma UK for lending me one of their rather wonderful SD Quattro H cameras for a couple of weeks. I have some Lake District photos coming soon, but in the mean time, here is a field of leeks, from West Lancashire. At this time of year you can smell these fields from some way off.